DWTH Day 14: Maricopa Mountains

Daily Miles: 16.8, Total Miles: 203.6

Still pretty good sleeping weather but warmest night so far.

I rocked and rolled on primitive roads and x-country all day heading generally NW through the South Maricopa Mountains. By mid-morning I had reached another wildlife guzzler with two nearly full troughs, a bit green and full of tadpoles but filtered nicely. Lots of finches were taking advantage of the water source.

It got real toasty in the afternoon, the reason early spring is coming to the desert. Brittlebush and ocotillo are flowering and even the poppies are emerging.

Much of the x-country travel is up and down washes which sometimes can be better tread than rocky trails. Today I had taken off my warm hoodie and draped it around my pack, loosely tied down. While walking down a narrow wash, a mesquite tree gently lifted the hoodie from my pack. I can’t count the half-mile it took me to go back and retrieve it once I discovered it was missing.

Late in the afternoon I had to stop after more pain than normal from my little toe and take off my shoe. The toe was forming a blister but the pain was coming from a toenail that now looks like it will fall off. I popped the blister and an ibuprofen, taped it up and kept moving. Soon after, I crossed over train tracks and Maricopa Road onto another vehicle access road into the Sonoran Desert National Monument.

I quickly reached my next water cache hidden behind a mesquite tree a short distance from the road and decided to camp right there.

No other hikers today but I did see a few cottontail rabbits and the bird of the day was a black-tailed gnatcatcher. This bird would have come in handy last night in my tent – I had a few hundred gnats in my tent mostly glued to the roof, watching me or waiting for me to go to sleep.